


floral snapbacks and awkward kisses

by BansheeLydia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Development, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Future Fic, Literal Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 18:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6126796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BansheeLydia/pseuds/BansheeLydia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jackson’s come to terms with who he is, grown into himself and settled, and he’s calmer for it.  Kira doesn’t know much about the Jackson the others knew, but she kind of likes the Jackson she knows now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	floral snapbacks and awkward kisses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ericaismeg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ericaismeg/gifts).



From what the pack have told Kira about Jackson Whittemore, she’s not expecting them to get along.

She’s expecting someone cold and abrasive. She’s expecting someone arrogant, cruel, egotistical. She’s expecting, frankly, an asshole. She’s heard everything about him, from the way he treated Scott and Stiles to the way he hurt Lydia. 

He seems like the embodiment of everything Kira doesn’t like, so when she hears he’s returning to Beacon Hills, she’s more than a little worried. 

She stands between Scott and Allison in the airport, fiddling with the hem of her sweater. She spots Jackson immediately; she’s seen pictures on her friends’ Facebook pages, but he’s even more handsome in real life.

She’s not expecting a genuine, warm smile to light up his face as he approaches them.

She’s not expecting him to ignore Scott’s outstretched hand in favor of hugging him and clapping him on the back, or for him to offer cheerful greetings to everyone in the pack.

She’s not expecting for him to meet Peter’s gaze, offer a cool, “Creep,” before grinning slightly and shaking Peter’s hand. 

And she’s not expecting Jackson to pause in front of her, offer a small smile and hold out his hand. 

“Jackson,” he says. “You’re Kira, right?”

Kind of stunned, she can do little more than take his hand. He gives it a shake before pulling away and picking up his bags. He’s wearing a soft, almost cuddly looking sweater and Stiles snorts, tugs on it with a raised eyebrow.

“Careful, Stilinski. This cost a hell of a lot more than your scrawny ass is worth.” Jackson says, but he follows it up with tugging Stiles close to rub his knuckles over his scalp almost affectionately, and offers, “You can borrow it sometime.” 

Yeah, this is a side of Jackson Whittemore that Kira never expected, and from the looks on her friends’ faces, neither did they.

*

“London’s been good to him,” Lydia says.

Kira looks over to where Jackson’s wedged between Isaac and Erica on the couch playing video games. The three of them keep throwing out threats and insults, Jackson blocking Erica’s view to make her crash her kart and grinning when Isaac helps by tickling her. 

The first time they’d been around Jackson, there’d been an underlying tension, Isaac and Erica both throwing out abrasive comments and Jackson had responded with sarcastic little quips, but according to Erica, he’d later sat with them and talked it out, _apologized_ , and looking at them now, Kira would even dare to say they were like bickering siblings.

Kira notices that though Isaac keeps elbowing Jackson in the ribs to distract him and make him crash, Jackson’s very careful about retaliating in non-physical ways with Isaac, and to her, that speaks volumes about the kind of person Jackson is now.

“He’s still him,” Lydia adds with a smirk as Jackson calls Isaac a ‘scrawny, cheating fucker’, “But he’s...softer.”

“He’s grown into himself,” Stiles offers, not looking up from his book. 

It’s Jackson’s friendship with Stiles that’s maybe the most surprising to the others. After the nogitsune, Stiles has been struggling, and Scott had bristled when Jackson first brought it up, half expecting Jackson to make a cutting remark about it.

Instead, he’s been _helping_ Stiles, and to Kira, it kinda makes sense. She’s been told about the kanima; Jackson knows what it’s like to have his control stripped away, to be used to kill people. 

Jackson’s come to terms with who he is, grown into himself and settled, and he’s calmer for it. Kira doesn’t know much about the Jackson the others knew, but she kind of likes the Jackson she knows now.

*

The first time it happens is at a pack meeting.

She’d been up all night trying to finish a paper and Derek’s loft is only lit by lamps that cast a soft, warm glow. She’s so tired, and she’s so comfy between Malia and Jackson on the couch, and with Derek’s voice, low and soothing, rambling on, she ends up dozing off.

She wakes with a start an hour later, head pillowed on Jackson’s shoulder. Most of the others have gone, but she can hear Derek and Boyd talking in the kitchen, and Jackson’s just playing a game on his phone, letting her sleep on him.

Embarrassment floods through Kira and she sits up quickly, cheeks heating up. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

Jackson looks up, meets her gaze with an unreadable expression. “It’s fine,” he says quietly.

She rubs the back of her neck, unsure what to say, and he just gazes at her until a yawn takes her by surprise. Jackson laughs and grabs her jacket from the back of the couch, holding it out.

“Go get some sleep,” he says. “Do you need a ride home?”

Allison comes in, then, holding up her keys, so Kira shakes her head. “I’m good, Allison said she’d take me home.”

Jackson nods and turns back to his game, so Kira offers a quick ‘goodnight’ and hurries out with Allison on her heels.

She tries to ignore the butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

*

It’s a couple of weeks later that Jackson falls asleep on her.

They’re at Scott’s, the whole pack finding places to sleep in the house, exhausted after dealing with a group of warlocks. 

Kira wakes when she hears a whimper and sits up, switches to her kitsune eyes so she can see in the dark. She’s sharing the living room with Malia, Allison and Lydia, but they’re all still deeply asleep.

There’s another quiet, distressed sound and she realizes its Stiles. They all know he has nightmares, memories from being possessed by the nogitsune plaguing him, and she wonders if she should go up. She starts to wriggle out from beneath her blanket, but stops when she notices Jackson leave the kitchen and head upstairs. 

A moment later, Stiles stops crying. Kira’s hearing isn’t quite good enough to hear what Jackson says, but after a while of listening to the low rumble of his voice, she realizes that Jackson is reading to Stiles.

Kira’s tired, but she can’t bring herself to go back to sleep. Malia had claimed the couch, but at some point she’d rolled off it to lie on top of Allison, so eventually she gets up and grabs a bottle of water from the kitchen before sitting on the couch, blanket around her shoulders.

She doesn’t know how long Jackson stays with Stiles, but flat dawn light is starting to leak through the curtains when she hears quiet footsteps on the stairs. When he reaches the bottom, Jackson looks at her for a moment before giving her a tired smile and joining her on the couch.

“Is he okay?” she whispers, not wanting to wake the others.

Jackson nods, his voice rough from overuse as he says, “He’s sleeping.”

Kira offers the bottle of water she’d grabbed for him and Jackson thanks her quietly, taking a few sips to soothe his throat. They don’t speak for a while, just gazing at the window, but when Kira turns and opens her mouth to say something, she realizes Jackson’s fast asleep.

His body tips slowly enough for her to stop it or move, but Kira can’t bring herself to do either, not wanting to wake Jackson. He ends up with his head on her knees, giving a quiet snore, and Kira knows she’s going to regret it later when she’s got a dead leg, but she figures Jackson deserves to sleep comfortably and undisturbed considering what he’d just done for Stiles.

There’s this feeling in her gut, a kind of warm fondness that she doesn’t want to put any other name to, as she gazes down at Jackson. He looks so relaxed in slumber and she has the urge to stroke her fingers through his hair, but she thinks that might be weird, so she curls her hands around the blanket and tries instead to get some sleep.

*

It takes Kira a month to admit that she’s drawn to Jackson.

She never expected to even like him, let alone feel the way she does around him. She gets butterflies in her stomach when he smiles and she misses him when he’s not there, and she feels all warm and happy when she thinks about him.

So, okay, she might like Jackson. A _lot_. But she doesn’t know what to do with it, so she tries not to think about it, and they don’t talk about the whole falling asleep on each other thing.

Jackson throws a party for his birthday and Kira, for the first time, gets to see the Whittemore house. It’s huge and all decked out for the party and his parents are out for the whole night, trusting him and his guests not to trash the place which is probably a _terrible_ idea.

Lydia tells her to expect a lot of people. Kira’s heard stories about Jackson’s parties and if she could find one way to describe them, it would be ‘typical party in a high school movie’ complete with red solo cups, too many people to be comfortable, and probably less than legal activities.

Instead, when she gets there, Kira finds that aside from the pack, the only other person there is Danny.

When Stiles remarks on it, Jackson just shrugs, says, “The people I care about are here, that’s all I want.” 

Lydia actually gets a little tearful at that and Scott gives Jackson a goofy grin, but it’s Stiles who hugs Jackson hard. Jackson rolls his eyes, says something sarcastic that makes Stiles laugh, and while Lydia and Scott disappear to make out by the pool and Stiles chases after Erica for a round of beer pong, Kira walks up to Jackson.

“Happy birthday,” she offers, holding out a small, flat package.

“You didn’t have to get me a gift,” he says and she rolls her eyes.

“It’s called gratitude, Jax. Try it.”

He offers a charming smile and a sarcastic, “ _Thank you_ , Kira,” that has her grinning back before he carefully opens the gift.

He stares at the _Lord of the Rings_ boxset, features slack with surprise. Kira’s a little worried that he doesn’t like it and she shifts her weight nervously from foot to foot, waiting for him to say something. Finally, he lifts his gaze, blue eyes tracking over her face.

“How did you...?”

“I know you read the books to Stiles a lot,” she shrugs. “So I figured you must like them too, so I got you the movies.”

Jackson’s quiet for another long moment before he says, quietly and sincerely, “Thank you.”

Kira’s heart flutters and she tries not to smile too wide, but she can’t help it. Jackson looks so pleased and she loves knowing that she put that expression there. 

Jackson clears his throat. “I like your hat, babe.” He reaches out, steals the floral snapback and places it backwards on his own head before smoothing Kira’s ruffled hair down.

It looks good on him, Kira has to admit, even if the pink doesn’t go with his shirt at all, and she grins. Jackson’s hand moves to her jaw, thumb touching the dimple in her cheek.

“I like your smile,” he says.

Kira doesn’t dare breathe, eyes wide. She wants to close the small gap between them, to see if Jackson’s lips feel as soft as they look, but before she can he seems to snap back to reality, blinking a couple of times. His cheeks, adorably, go a little pink as he steps back, drops his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says gruffly.

He starts to turn away, embarrassed, and Kira doesn’t hold herself back like she has done before. Her hand finds Jackson’s wrist, thumb stroking his pulse point, and he pauses to look at her.

“I like you,” she says quickly. “I like your face.”

Jackson blinks again. “Babe, everyone likes my face.”

“I like that, too,” Kira laughs. “You can be such a jerk, but...you’re not mean with it. I like that you’re kind, even if you are kind of cocky. I like your smile, and your laugh, and I like your dumb soft sweaters. I like how you always help Stiles and how you always keep an eye on Isaac. I like that you’ve got a good heart, even if you won’t admit it, and I like it when you fall asleep on me, and when you let me sleep on you. I just...” she takes a deep breath and finishes simply, “I like you.”

Jackson lifts his hands to cup her jaw and leans close, just resting their foreheads together. “I like you too,” he says softly and presses their lips together.

As first kisses go, it’s a little awkward; their noses bump together and Kira’s lips are a little too dry so they stick uncomfortably to Jackson’s. But Jackson slowly slides his hands down her body to the small of her back, coaxes her body against his as she opens her mouth to him, and the kiss deepens and it’s _good_ , so good, Kira’s toes curling in her boots and happiness going off like fireworks in her stomach.

When Kira pulls away, Jackson grins. He steps back but links their hands, giving this cute little wink, and Kira feels warm and happy, completely on top of the world.

(Later, when the party winds down, they’ll end up falling asleep on each other, completely exhausted, on Jackson’s couch. But this time when they wake, they share a sweet kiss and simply move to his bed for a nap.)

**Author's Note:**

> allirica.tumblr.com - come say hi? :)


End file.
